What if this is the last time for both of us? What if this is the last time I am the most important person in your life?The last time my hand is held before it permanently exchanges places with A husbandA father of your childrenA child of your own What if this is the last time you press your forehead to mine in a packed restaurant as a means of greeting me? Hold onto me tight in parking lots with tears dampening moon-round eyes. Street lamps picking up freckles that have always been placed just so, across a nose that belongs as much to you as it does your father and me? In a sea of people, we have always been each other’s. What if tonight is the last time you still look for me? Diary of a Life Well Lived is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Heat from an Italian kitchen mixes with the heat of human uncertainty; precipitation gives way to sweat that starts to crawl its way around a tight leather booth, making its presence known under arms and backs of legs and finally up and onto moist, glowing faces. You are seated next to me while seated next to him, and his mother is seated across from me. It feels like a game of keep-away as we battle the inevitable next stage of life that parenting books forget to include at the end of “What to Expect When You’re Expecting, the Extended Edition.” She becomes my comrade in arms, so to speak, our eyes filled with a knowing of what is to come whilst our smiles hide truths and fears soaked in the kerosene of lasts, soon to be lit in the form of two single birthday candles. An hour in, and I’m both carrying the conversation and the weight of this sadness for both of us. Somehow I know I’m the stronger of the mothers, so I attempt to distract where applicable and wrap up every sentence with warm milk and lace my tone in honey. Hopes high that this coating will fight its way through the noisy crowd of voices and make its way to a mother on her son’s last childhood birthday. Candles sparkle 21, and we all look to him. Unspoken thoughts hide in the hundreds of smiles ricocheted across a table that I’m sure has seated this exact scene too many times to keep an honest count. Because what comes next is the years all at once. Days roll into weeks, roll into months, and eventually roll into birthdays toppling over each other far too quickly for us to catch our breaths and remind aging brains that the streamers and party hats season is indeed behind us now. We might find ourselves meandering through those cute yet overstuffed mall stores filled with every assortment of themed sections until our eyes land on tiny green dinosaur figurines and pink ceramic ballet slippers. We will pause in a moment of reflective memories alive all at once again like a black-and-white film emerging from its premature burial. Blurry screen, muffled sound, cracks at the edges from being tampered with by time. We might see those figurines atop cakes and tiny fingertips sneaking smears of buttercream into their mouths, the evidence at the edges of their bottom lips. I imagine her son with the bright neon long socks we talked about earlier in the evening and a version of his same floppy hair he pushes to the side a bit to keep it out of his eyes. I revisit my girl’s 4-year-old uniform: blush pink skirt with some form of sparkle, striped T-shirt that made no sense to pair with such a sparkling bottom, giant flower barrette in her curls, small feet clad in brown leather boots—even in the sweltering Southern California summer heat. Chants of “Happy Birthday” erupt from an entire restaurant, my phone in hand as keeper of a thousand memories, and just like that, the sparkles have reached their end and so has this season. Gifts and hugs and tears and spoons making their way through a tiramisu from the hands of the girl I’ve known every version of. I will later thank God on the way home for blessing me with motherhood at such a young age, if only to be afforded the gift of my children experiencing so many versions of their mother. Smiles across the table for a birthday well done, even if we know what’s to come. What if this is the last time for the both of us? Diary of a Life Well Lived is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Diary of a Life Well Lived at diaryofalifewelllived.substack.com/subscribe
